1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to method for defining image positioning value, tagging POI, and the related apparatus, more particularly, it's to utilize a global positioning system to record the position of the image being taken, and accordingly to set a POI.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, diverse functions are developed and incorporated into the digital capturing device such as digital camera and camcorder. A digital camera may be equipped with built-in global positioning system (GPS) chip which is utilized to record the position as taking an image. Meanwhile, the related coordinates information is carried into image attribute, such as the well known Exchangeable image file (EXIF).
While the stored digital image files are getting more as continuously photographing, it becomes enormous and complex to manage the files. Therefore, some conventional arts are developed to provide a good deal of management. The most seen approach is utilizing the date accompanied with the image file as photographing. One of the latest ways is to incorporate the position information retrieved from a global positioning system (GPS) and an electronic map therefor while the image is taken. Those provided approaches will still meet a problem when the system can not receive any GPS signal that results in no any positioning information.
Further reference is made to the table below showing an example of EXIF. This table records the image's attribute including any data, time, and image signals as photographing. Furthermore, a set of coordinates, including the values of longitude and latitude, retrieved via GPS is also recorded, and possibly for another use in the future.
This table shows an example of EXIF:
TagValueManufacturerSonyCamera ModelSony T2X-Resolution72Y-Resolution72Resolution UnitdpiDate and Time2008:10:06 10:23:52Exposure Time0.00800 (1/125) secF NumberF2.4Metering ModeAperture FirstISO64EXIF Version30, 32, 32, 31Date and Time2008:10:02 10:18:00(original)Date and Time2008:10:02 10:18:00(digitized)Exposure Bias (EV+−)0Pixel X Dimension1600 pixelPixel Y Dimension1200 pixelGPS Latitude24, 17′40.0802″GPS Longitude120, 38′33.2314″GPS Elevation100.035 m
The image captured through a digital image capturing device contains the positioning information recorded in EXIF. According to the above table, the positioning information may include GPS latitude and GPS longitude which can be the basis of categorization. Especially the positioning signal obtained through GPS is used to categorize the images, and preferably a specific software application is employed therefor. The relevant technology can refer to U.S. Pat. No. 6,657,661. U.S. Pat. No. 6,657,661 has disclosed a digital camera with GPS enabled file management, and the produced positioning signals are used to file a great quantity of images. The related process is shown in FIG. 1.
The GPS built in the digital camera is adapted to determine the location of the device, including the positioning signal with longitude and latitude (step S102). Through a GPS database, the related name of the location can be recognized, such as the name of city, road or the address (step S104). A compass adopting principle of terrestrial magnetism is used to determine the facing direction of the device (step S106). Those images are stored based on information of the names and directions (step S108), therefore it's convenient to file the images, especially for the great quantity of files.